Читать книгу LifeLines - Malcolm Doney - Страница 25

16

Be kind

Proverbs are back. Short, pithy sayings which make you laugh, surprise you with a twist, or invite you to think twice about your day. Authorship is often contested. As Abraham Lincoln himself once put it: ‘The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you never know if they’re genuine.’

Among the millions of online aphorisms, few have gained popularity and staying power like the following soundbite by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. ‘Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.’

Actually, as Lincoln would have undoubtedly pointed out (had he not died 150 years before the arrival of the internet), Plato did not say this, but the attribution doubtless contributes to its longevity. It was probably coined by the nineteenth-century Scottish writer Ian McClaren who, when asked by a religious weekly for a Christmas message, replied: ‘Be pitiful, for every man is fighting a hard battle.’

We wouldn’t use the word ‘pity’ these days, we might use the word ‘empathy’, a quality that we cannot underestimate according to anthropologist Jane Goodall:

Empathy is really important. Only when our clever brain and our human heart work together in harmony can we achieve our true potential.¹

In public or in private, all of us are wrestling with the complexities of living this life – from how to negotiate a relationship to how to pay the bills. Some days are difficult and resolution refuses to arrive. Responding with kindness will never make things worse – and usually make them better.

‘Kindness is like water,’ says the Dalai Lama, ‘religion like tea.’²

Come again?

In Ethics are More Important than Religion he describes how the tea we drink is made mostly of water, but it also contains other ingredients as well to make it taste good. But however we make it, the main ingredient of tea is always water. And when push comes to shove, we can live without tea, but not without water. Likewise, he says, ‘we are born without religion, but not without the basic need for compassion’.

In other words, while the human race could probably survive without religion, we don’t stand a chance without kindness.